Request for Assistance In Assessing an Important Sea Level Study

John, the very first thing is establish that the land is not sinking or eroding………

Thanks for your name Mr. Droz. I will take steps to ensure your views are not represented in the upcoming debate.

John seems to say he is an old fashioned scientist who relies on empirical evidence, but then says “The brief story is that North Carolina is attempting to be the first state in the nation to impose rather comprehensive and consequential (i.e. expensive) rules and regulations on its coastal communities. This is based on projected substantially increased sea levels, due to the assumed effects of AGW.
But it’s worse than that. The basis for these changes is a 2010 NC Sea Level Assessment Report“, which gives the impression that he has “done an alarmist” i.e. decided on the conclusion and is now working out how to adjust the data.
Perhaps my initial read through is wrong, but let’s gather data first and then talk about the conclusion. If the conclusion agrees with the IPCC then so be it.
/Mango

I have read phd. written papers of sea level heights during the Aurginacian Oscillation time period. They stated the sea levels were 120 feet above what they are today in Northern Europe. What imposition of increased tax levels or other ‘solutions’ are going to change a natural process? Do you need more research money? Get it from Al Gore. He has been able to fleece honest people for a while now. He has perfected the art.

We compiled a list of multiple sea-level studies, including a variety of predictions. The list can be found here:
http://www.c3headlines.com/2010/11/memo-to-incoming-republicans-climate-scientists-are-full-of-sea-lies-crazy-ass-predicitions.html
At the bottom of the posting are source url’s for each study. Hope this helps.
C3

The Earth turns, and things change, beyond any control of humans. Wealthy people build grand houses on oceans edges, subject to severe erosion, then expect much less wealthy taxpayers to pay for projects to prevent and reverse the effects of erosion.
It is no more than a scam that CO2 has any signifiicant effect on temperature or climate.
I do know that back in the 1

I’d start with the satellite record at http://sealevel.colorado.edu/.
It has the advantage, I think, of eliminating land subsidence issues. Also note that, contrary to predictions of accelerating sea level rise, the overall average rate since satellites began recording has declined from 3.2 mm per year to 3.1 mm per year. Note also that almost no readings have been recorded above the 3.1 mm trend line since the beginning of 2010.

A bunch of comments. First, sea level has been rising since the LIA. Temperatures have been rising since the LIA. That’s the “correlation” that’s shown. It would have been nice if they’d color coded their dots to show time rather than having them all be red. You get no sense from their figure of whether or not the relationship between T and dH seems to be coherently changing with time or not. For example, there used to be more surface area with glaciers during the LIA, so one might expect that sea level would be more sensitive to T back then. Second, actual sea level measurements from satellite altimetry seem to show a recent slowdown in sea level rise rather than an acceleration. This is consistent with measurements from the recent Argos network. There is the built in assumption in the above work that temperatures will continue to rise following IPCC scenarios and therefore sea level rise should accelerate if anything. Third, any change in sea level would not be uniform globally. NC is on the shelf side of the Gulf Stream and would be influenced by changes in Gulf Stream transport among other things. Are there any GPS grounded sea level measurements along the NC coast? I think NOAA might have done some surveying for various projects. If the surveys have been repeated, which should be likely, then you can separate actual sea level change from changes in the elevation of the coast. The rates at which the coast is rising or sinking should be relatively constant as long as there’s been no significant ground water depletion or oil extraction from pumping. So you could potentially come up with measurements of NC sea level change to use. Local use of altimetry is limited by ground track resolution (and shifting by +/- 1 km over which the geoid can vary significantly) plus land contamination when the satellite is too close to shore.
The biggest assumption, is the high assumed sensitivity of the atmosphere to CO2. Without this assumption, the future projected temperature rises don’t happen and of course the resulting sea level rises don’t happen either. There are a number of threads about this which have appeared on WUWT from time to time.
Hope this helps.

I would suggest that a professional chemical engineer, one who knows about the specific heat capacity of gases, be consulted as to the effects CO2 has on atmospheric temperature.
I know that back in the 1940s, 90 bushels of corn per acre was considered to be a bumper crop, and that 60 bushels per acre was a good crop. As a result of the increased CO2 levels since then, 140 bushels of corn per acre is common as of now.
As for the measurement of sea levels, the problem is that there is no fixed benchmark from which to measure diffences in elevation.

Rahmstorf’s forecast is just a statistical extrapolation of past trends, and its reception in scientific circles (including those most enthusiastic about predictions of rapid sea level rise) was not of wholehearted approval. Most people (including Rahmstorf) have not insisted with that exercise.
IPCC projections are based on a variety of sources and models and are on the whole more credible, although quite uncertain in a number of respects.
Recent work on the various aspects of the matter have not produced projections very different from IPCC scenarios. If anything, observed sea level rise as measured from satellites appears to have decelerated in the 2000s (especially since 2003) relative to the years before (since satellite measurements started in late 1992). At any rate, satellite measurements give a trend of about 30cm per century for the world average.
On the other hand, all this refers to eustatic or equilibrium average sea level, not to the relative level of sea water relative to the features of a particular coast, which is also affected by land uplifting or subsidence, and by deposition or removal of sediment.

Rahmstorf’s forecast is just a statistical extrapolation of past trends

And that is something that really bothers me about “climate science” in general. I have made the comment that a climate scientist must be scared to death of roller coasters at amusement parks because they would assume the initial climb would continue forever and they would die from lack of oxygen and then the following drop would continue forever and cause them to burn in hot magma.
Has the climate warmed since the 1800’s? Sure. And the associated retreat of glaciers would be expected to increase sea levels. That is not in question as far as I am concerned. What *is* in question is whether this is unusual in the context of geological history. We might note that “global warming” has for all practical purposes stopped in the 21st century. According to the graphs provided by U. Colorado, sea level rise has been flat since late 2005; there hasn’t been any. Sure, there are bumps and dips due to thermal impacts of el nino and la nina events, but overall the trend is flat since 2005.
To conclude that the rise associated with the recovery from the LIA will continue forever is purely speculation. To further conclude that this rise is due to human activity is speculation piled on speculation.
In addition, we know that sea levels have been up to 2 meters higher than present during the current Holocene interglacial. We also know that glaciers have during this interglacial have retreated to a greater extent in the past than they have since the LIA. We know this because as these glaciers retreat, they are exposing wood that is about 5,000 years old. Assuming this wood was transported some distance by the glacier from where it grew, it would be logical to conclude that the glaciers in the Alps were in the recent geological past much smaller than they are now and that currently glaciated areas were ice free and were ice free long enough to become forested.
Now back to the question of sea level rise. The question to ask, in my opinion, is what is most LIKELY to happen. Assuming warmer temperatures mean higher sea level, it is most likely that sea level rise will most likely slow a bit or even stop. Should Northern Hemisphere (NH) climate begin to cool for any significant period of time, as is likely with a colder PDO cycle, sea levels may actually decline a bit. As there is much more glacial variability in the NH than in the SH, NH climate would be expected to have a greater impact on sea levels than SH climate. A doubling of ice volume in North America and Europe, for example, would have a greater impact than a doubling if ice volume in South America and Africa.
What isn’t given enough weight, in my opinion, is the impact of the recovery from the LIA and probably the continued warming of the abyssal ocean (albeit slow) from that event. It is easier to cool deep water than it is to warm it from changes in surface temperature due to convection.
“Global warming” has been flat for about the past 10 years. Sea level rise has been flat for about the last 6 years. Projections of sea level rise don’t seem to take the latest 10 years into account and don’t seem to take into account the change in trend starting in late 2005.
If you look at this graph: http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global.jpg with the exception of the strong 2009/2010 el nino thermal event, there is no rising trend for sea levels since 2005. The trend is “flat” at about the 20mm line. Sadly this graph is not updated frequently and still only shows data up to the middle of 2010.

Best solution for the CO2, the sea is about to wash us off the planet crowd,,
Find a solid rock planet with no CO2 move there, enjoy.

Even if errors or problems might be elicited if IPCC’s work is scrutinised in detail, I think in the matter of sea level rise the simple AR4 analysis is, for the most part, sufficient to dispel nonsensical claims going the rounds. Some of the phrasing in the IPCC report is misleading (e.g. “[T]he Greenland Ice Sheet would largely be eliminated, raising sea level by about 7 m, if a sufficiently warm cli¬mate were maintained for millennia” (Meehl et al 2007, p.752). (Meehl et al is the 10th chapter of the WG1 report of AR4). Taken literally, the above statement is a tautology: the total GIS mass (equivalent to 7 metres of sea level) will of course be eliminated if ‘sufficiently warm climate’ is maintained for (an unspecified number of) millennia. Having that effect is, in this context, the very definition of a ‘sufficient’ warming. The likelihood of such conditions being maintained for so long is not discussed in the cited passage, but in any case the question belongs in the very long term (literally millennia according to the same document, citing a model by Ridley et al that estimates the ablation to take about 3000 years…)
But if one forgets about these nonsensical turns of phrase, the fact is that IPCC projects sea level to rise by about one foot in 100 years: the midpoint of the estimation range (i.e. the spread among models) for the various SRES scenarios goes from 28 to 42 cm from 1980-99 to 2090-99 (a period, by the way, of 105, not 100 years if you take the midpoint of each interval). Even the width of the “uncertainties” are willfully exaggerated (and skewed towards higher upper bounds) by means of playing with the so-called “land ice sum” (Meehl et al 2007, p.820). That’s another story, but indeed a masterful lesson in sophistry.
All in all, and just as a way of dealing with alarmist predictions, one may simply state that not even the IPCC has predicted more than a very modest rise in sea levels.

I think that apart from the infant and contested nature of the research, one of your most difficult problems will be untangling the issues. We have a lot of this kind of malarkey going on in Australia, where most of the population lives (or wishes it did) as close to the beach as possible. Local authorities are now in a panic because dodgy AGW related ‘projections’ indicate that billions of dollars worth of expensive property is about to be swamped by rising seas.
Canny property owners are now seeking compensation and other taxpayer funded measures to counter normal phenomena such as erosion, land subsidence and storm surges. They are even threatening to sue if they are denied $$, saying that the agencies that allowed them to build where they did should have warned them of the impending catastrophe.
Agree with PPs that historical and geological data to map the coastline and demonstrate the naturally occurring changes is an important first step. Old photographs and press reports could be useful – maybe consult some local historical societies and newspaper archives? Perhaps local universities and geologists could assist with geological profiling of the coastal and immediate offshore area as well.
Good luck. As you say, this boondoggle has to be stopped. And, if you have any sympathetic political researchers around, ask them to address the age-old question of cui boni. I’m guessing that you will find some local real estate interests and cash strapped local authorities not far from the surface.

To build on the observations of Steve in SC: There is an implicit assumption in many analyses of the results of sea level rise that the land just “sits there” to be swallowed up by rising seas. This static analysis is just not correct in many cases, such as coral atoll islands and river deltas, both of which respond dynamically to sea level changes.
The Outer Banks of North Carolina similarly respond dynamically to effects like sea level changes. These “barrier islands” are basically just giant sand bars in the ocean, and are anything but static, either horizontally or vertically. My family would camp on the beach there every summer when I was growing up, and I used to devour information on the history of the islands (as how Blackbeard the pirate was cornered and killed there).
One of the things I discovered (to my astonishment then) was the rapid rate of movement of the islands. In many places, the present location of the islands has no overlap with their location in the 1700s, as they have drifted westward. Misguided attempts to stabilize the islands with things like snow fences to create dunes have failed, and often made the problem worse, because they don’t stop erosion on the east (Atlantic Ocean) side, but prevent the natural build up on the west (Pamlico Sound) side.
In recent years, I have seen several articles on the supposed deleterious effects of sea level rise on the Outer Banks. However, all the incidents they have reported, like the need to move the Cape Hatteras lighthouse inland, are due to these “horizontal” effects, not the “vertical” effects of secular sea level rise.
Given the ephemeral nature of these sand-bar islands, there is every reason to believe that they will dynamically respond to sea-level changes of even many millimeters per year. They were not hundreds of feet above sea level during the last glacial period. They survive numerous hurricanes and nor’easters that pummel them, although in altered form. If they are temporarily beaten down by the high winds, big waves, and yes, (temporarily) increased sea levels of these storms, they quickly recover.

Flask alludes to “The projected 1 meter of rise over a century (if it occurs) “. But in fact such rise has NOT been projected, not at least by the IPCC, nor is inferrable from current and past trends. Some people from environmental NGOs and some journalists have spoken about 1 meter, 2 meters, 7 meters and what not. But actual projections from climate models assessed by the IPCC, for what they are worth, never projected more than about one foot in a century as the midpoint projection of various models run on various emission scenarios. Newer models since the latest IPCC models have in general gono no further, though various fears have been circulated about some higher rises that “could not be discarded” (an asteroid hitting Earth or a massive earthquake in San Francisco, as well as any of us being killed by a random sniper in the coming two days, cannot be discarded either). But that is not the way to make rational assessments of the future, is it?

I think North Carolina has a particular problem in that post-glacial rebound is actually causing a subsidence of the land level.
In the ice ages, the northern half of North America was pushed down which created a glacial forebulge from New York to North Carolina. Now that the land in the north is still rebounding, the bulge is declining. It is about 0.5 mms per year in the northern half of North Carolina (and a little less in some places in the southern part).
The same issue is happening in southern England and the Netherlands.
Global Map of the post-glacial rebound rates (both positive and negative).
http://blogs.discovery.com/.a/6a00d8341bf67c53ef0120a8ee8cb8970b-800wi
And this paper is widely cited.
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/earth/bph/Res2009/Horton%20et%20al_QSR_2009_2.pdf

Steve Mosher,
I see from your comment that you recommended that John Droz should work on a one metre rise in 100 years.
That seems to be quite excessive, given the historic rates and that there seems to be no sign of any acceleration.
I would have advised John to advise his clients to forget about possible sea level rises and to concentrate on more concrete and more pressing and immediate problems (say with a five to ten year horizon).
Problems which MAY arise in the long distant future can be handled far closer to their incidence, particularly given the questionable quality of the source of the forecast.

With respect Mr. Droz,
I think NC got it right and other States can learn from their insight.
North Carolina Sea-Level Rise Assessment Report
Maybe its just me but I completely disagree with figure 2 on page 11 which shows an exaggerated rise in sea level.
“… Immediate actions should be guided by what we know best, the historical sea level and storm records combined with reasonable safety factors. With improvements in data collection, climate science and modeling, sea level decadal to century-scale predictions should improve in the future. The Panel recommends a general reassessment of the planning predictions every five years or more frequently should any significant breakthroughs develop.”
Probability of “significant breakthroughs” for the next 30 years are very close to zero.
Hope it helps,
John

Also, in Broome again, high tide also reaches the edge of the runway at Broome International Airport, and a few metres from the new BOM building with weather recording equipment including radar tower, and if the level had got any higher over the last 40 years, the runway would have become unusable.
With BOM’s new building so close to high water, they now seem to have confidence in sea level not rising, at least here in Broome.

http://climatesanity.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/rahmstorf-2009-off-the-mark-again-part-1/
Maybe this can help you?
Comment by author
This post was published on March 21st, 2010. The same day I submitted a technical comment at RealClimate (where Stefan Rahmstorf is a contributor) which urged them to read my ClimateSanity post for more details.
My comment was deleted.
This was the first time I had ever submitted a comment at RealClimate, but I had heard that they had a tendency to delete difficult comments. I figured they would consider my comment to be a problem, so I made a screen image of the comment submission.
You can see that screen image here.
As you can see, my comment was technical in nature, but problematic for Vermeer and Rahmstorf. And as I suspected, they deleted it.
The same thing happened with a more recent comment, which you can read here
This is even more interesting when you consider the tone and content of the other comments that they did not delete. Keep reading here to see some comments concerning my post by some RealClimate readers. Not exactly erudite stuff.
You may not be aware that I have had previous interactions with Stefan Rahmstorf. You can read about it here . I don’t think Rahmstorf was much willing to deal with me after that.
Here is the bottom line: Rahmstorf has become quite prominent in the global warming sphere. Many influential people use his sea-level rise projections to justify their desire to change the economy of the entire planet. If Rahmstorf wants to have that kind of power, then he is obligated address serious questions and criticisms, whether of not he likes the forum or format of those criticisms.
I hope you continue to read my long series of posts concerning Vermeer’s and Rahmstorf’s PNAS article. You can see an index of those posts here. I would especially urge you to read parts 9 & 10.
I think the inescapable conclusion is that their sea-level projections for the 21st century are bogus. Given the influence that Rahmstorf seems to hold with “policymakers,” he has the obligation to “fess-up.”
Best regards,
ClimateSanity

This is OT, but a big “Howdy” to John Droz! I was a fan of his marvelous “Mac vs. PC” website, now
http://macvspc.info/index.html
which I used to recommend heartily as Apple was emerging from the dark days of the 1990s. Now of course the Macintosh computer is becoming the favorite of college students and (increasingly) scientists and other professionals, though there are still a lot of PC holdouts here (including Anthony, who hasn’t figured out that he can run his vertical-market applications on virtual machines and still enjoy the stability and elegance of OS X).
Glad to see you’re on the side of Climate Realism, too, and have not succumbed to the dire emotional hysteria of the Enviro-Alarmists.
Let those folks in NC watch Nils-Axel Mörner’s videos about the Maldives and the myth of the rising ocean (someone has probably posted the links above).
/Mr Lynn

PS My wife and I honeymooned on Long Beach, NC, back in the ’70s. Has the rising sea wiped out all those houses along the shore? I’m thinking we should go back for our 40th, in 2013—if not sooner, and I’ll bet I won’t see much difference.
/Mr Lynn

I’d have to agree with Mr. Mosher for the most part. Since coastal development is problematic for many more reasons than rising sea level and most estimates of sea level rise are global average numbers which are basically wild ass guesses and even if correct would not necessarily be representative of the levels in any particular regional coastal area, it would be prudent to craft coastal development restrictions to a more stringent standard than would be likely to eventuate. Of course in the context of coastal development regulation even a meter of sea level rise would likely be subsumed in the the systemic and chaotic variability of the extreme events these regs are meant to address. With a 20 foot storm surge coming in at high tide an additional foot of seas from rising sea levels is unlikely to be the most significant threat facing those living in coastal communities.

Dave Wendt says:
February 24, 2011 at 9:50 pm
I’d have to agree with Mr. Mosher for the most part. Since coastal development is problematic for many more reasons than rising sea level and most estimates of sea level rise are global average numbers which are basically wild ass guesses and even if correct would not necessarily be representative of the levels in any particular
regional coastal area, it would be prudent to craft coastal development restrictions to a more stringent standard than would be likely to eventuate.
=======================
An extension of social engineering, really.
You (and I can not believe I am disagreeing with you here because you are usually on point) and Mosher are falling back into idealistic and non-economic models…as opposed to real-world observations.
FACT: Most of America’s influential population lives within range of the coast.
FACT: That is not going to change, for any time (or eon) soon.
Follow the $$$ baby.
Step 1: Ask the 50 Million people in America’s largest mega-region, where they are from???
Within about 50 feet of sea level on the East Coast, that’s where!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

You might want to follow up on this — it considers additional sources of sea level rise other than AGW
http://wamu.org/news/11/02/24/chesapeake_region_leads_east_coast_in_sea_level_rise.php

Dear Mr. Droz,
I have read the report you linked to on your post. I do not subscribe to the notion that sea-level rise is an imminent and present threat. My bias now up front, I still find the report’s conclusions and recommendations quite sensible. They basically state that the current state of the science is not incontrovertible, suggest that more measurement stations be funded and, with more accurate data collection in place, the issue be re-examined every five years thereafter, or sooner than every five years if conditions should warrant it. Seems like a perfectly sensible approach to me.
Best,
Jose Suro

I read somewhere that there is a possibility that a tremor could knock one of the cliffs off a Canary Island, which in turn could create a tsunami that would sweep across the Atlantic and inundate the entire east coast of the United States. How plausible this is I’ve no idea, but you could argue that the North Carolineans should built a gigantic sea wall to prevent being swamped by such an event. Hey, you can’t be too careful, right?
/Mr Lynn

Hector, as you noticed, I said (if it happens), and my subsequent comments indicate that that kind of rate (as much as 1 meter by 2100) will be inconsequential to the coastline of North Carolina.
The barrier islands are dynamic, and as other posters have mentioned, respond to storm surges and seasonal changes, they change shape and position over time, but do not disappear. Any buildings on them cannot be expected to last for more than a few decades without losing their foundations. Many other coastal landforms are almost as ephemeral, and are really not suitable for permanent structures.
My point is that the threat of sea level rise is not so dangerous as assumed, certain coastal plains may be affected, but the Netherlands dikes system has demonstrated this can be dealt with.
9 inches in 90 years is insignificant, 4 times that is more significant, but still not a big problem. I’ll append the necessary caveat “if it happens”, because as you said, other, less likely things might also happen. A more rational approach is to designate certain landforms and geographical situations as special insurance zones, where compensation is limited for damages relating to storms and flooding events.

Mr Droz,
The following is from the report you cite and is focused on NC:
This record resolves an increase in the rate of SLR from 0.8 mm per year to 3.8 mm per year that occurred AD 1879-1915, which corresponds well with nearby tide gauges.
Ask the authors to explain how CO2 induced warming caused that increase in NC (note the date).

OK then, well first off I’m in almost total disagreement with most of what Willis just stated above.
The storm surge is not under the center of the hurricane, that is just the low pressure bulge, which is at most ~3 feet. The storm surge is wind and wave driven at the shoreline. I almost always occurs in the NE quadrant of the hurricane’s path in the NH and the SW quadrant in the SH, given their CCW and CW rotations, respectedly.
Most of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts coastal areas are in areas of low land relief, think 1:1000 or 1:10000 slopes. The vast majority of our barrier island system is below +10′ MHHW.
When I worked at the Outer Banks (FRF) we had a tropical storm with about a 3-4 foot storm surge, the beach road was inundated with 2-3 feet of standing water, and we went around in chest waders checking out buildings and the shoreline, kind of fun actually.
Storm surge, at the coastline proper, is just one rather small factor. Inland inundation is the ultimate killer.
Thus, adding just one additional foot of sea level, can lead to additional miles of inland inundation.
The USACE has a state-of-the-art GCM (general circulation model) called ADCIRC which is used to perdict storm surge and inland inundation from hurricanes and extra-tropical storms. I can assure you that ADCIRC, as a GCM, is definitely not junk.
The USACE current guidance on sea level rise is the IPCC AR4 WG1 estimates, which IMHO are rather conservative (low) as we speak today, given many subsequent research papers, and what we know is happening in the Arctic (and the potential implications this has for the western side of the Greenland ice sheet).
The USACE can be rather slow in updating their guidance, and they are at odds many atime with respect to beach nourishment projects due almost entirely to local political considerations.
Now in offshore engineering designs, the usual factor of safety (FS) is ~three times the actual calculated, or expected theoretical forcings. In soils engineering, FS’s are typically 6-18, and in structural engineering, FS’s are typically 1.5-2.0.
Thus, even if we take a linear extrapolation of current sea level rise, at ~3mm/yr, we end up with the magical one foot number by the end of the 21th century.
Thus a prudent coastal engineer “should” be using, for design guidance, a FS of ~3 attached to the minimum expectation of sea level rise (the one foot linear extrapolation), leading to what I believe the NC people have done with respect to their report recommendation of 39 inches (one meter). This is where I agree with Willis.
What this will mean is that coastal structures (new builds only) will need to be built (almost always on stilts) 39 inches higher than they are now currently built. If you go to the Outer Banks, even now, historical buildings built originally at ground level, are still there and still being used and lived in. Old existing buildings get grandfathered, in other words.
NC has historically been very anti-shore in terms of coastal structures and beach nourishment projects.
Also note that linear extrapolations of ~90+ years is a very bad idea IMHO.
Sea level rise is, IMHO, very much a laging indicator of potental global warming effects. It will be the last thing we see, for sure, when/if ##it hits the proverbial fan.
Finally, as an aside, if you don’t code in Fortran, than you are neither a serious research scientist or a serious research engineer IMHO, if you don’t code the models, if you’ve never used the models firsthand, that of which you cast down, you simply don’t have the slightest clue what all you are talking about in the first place.
Models are a tool, they serve a purpose, you might not like what the models say, but they are the best tools we have at any given point in time. Heck, here at CHL, we rarely use a physical model today, which is a dramatic change from just 10 years ago, even.

Smokey says:
February 27, 2011 at 6:29 pm
EFS_Junior says:
“The storm surge is wind and wave driven at the shoreline.”
Well, that’s part of the surge. Wiki defines a storm surge this way:
It is this combined effect of low pressure and persistent wind over a shallow water body which is the most common cause of storm surge flooding problems. The term “storm surge” in casual (non-scientific) use is storm tide; that is, it refers to the rise of water associated with the storm, plus tide, wave run-up, and freshwater flooding. [my emphasis]
So the surge is the combined effect of low pressure [the eye of the cyclone], wind/wave action, tides and flooding. How does that make Willis wrong? Junior also says:
“Sea level rise is, IMHO, very much a laging (sic) indicator of potental (sic) global warming effects.”
Wait a minute. For years and years we’ve been told by the alarmist crowd that sea level rise proved that CAGW was already happening. Now it’s a lagging indicator?? Talk about moving the goal posts! Is that lag sort of like the rise in CO2 levels 800 years after a rise in temperature is a “lagging” indicator of temperature?
Junior says of Willis, “…you simply don’t have the slightest clue what all you are talking about in the first place.” I think the rational folks here would strongly disagree.
_____________________________________________________________
So now you believe Wikipedia? 🙁
Storm surge is not due to the eye of the storm, as it were. Maximum storm surge, never has, and never will, occur in the eye of the storm, because, THERE’S NO WIND THERE!
Pressure drops significantly away from the eye of the storm simply due to the Bernoulli Principle, the pressure term is replaced by the velocity SQUARED term.
Simple enough concept for even you to understand, I hope.
For example, take Rita or Katrina, get their storm tracks, then get the storm surge data from both storms.
Guess what?
Maximum storm surges occures significantly far (tens of miles) from the accociated storm tracks, in there respective NE quadrants.
Heck, I live in Vicksburg, MS (USACE ERDC CHL also known as Waterways Experiment Station).
I’ve seen all the data from hundreds of storms, always the same, NE quadrant, never in the eye of the storm, it’s all just a matter of degree.
So that dispenses with your rather linited, or should I say, total lack of knowledge on said subject matter.
I won’t even bother with the rest of your nonsense.

Willis,
You clearly did not get the storm surge correct as you originally stated;
“The storm surge is the huge area of water under the center of a hurricane that is driven onshore with a hurricane.”
I rather clearly stated that this was NOT the case.
There is no “huge wall of water under the center of a hurricane”.
You need to go back and carefully re-read what it was that I actually stated. Come back then, and I’ll try to clear up any further misunderstandings you may have with respect to maximum hurricane surge and it’s location relative to the eye of the storm.
The pressure bulge is only ~3 ft at most, at the maximum pressure drop at the center of the storm, and it’s incredably simple to figure this out this number, I’ll leave it as an elementary exercise for you to figure out how that number is derived.
Since I’m a Research Hydraulic Engineer, let’s just say it’s like 2 + 2 = 4, but even you should be able to figure it out in less then a few seconds, even.
Anecdotal references are totally meaningless, and clearly subjective, without models, and much more specifically data, on actual storm surge events.
But do carry on, with several pages of anachdotal references, I won’t be wasting any more time on those thoughts though.
Second, as to ADCIRC, it is a general circulation model (GCM), which is what I clearly stated.
GCM can be either a global circulation model or a general circulation model, same acronym for both, get it? Where I’m from, a global circulation model is a subset of a general circulation model.
Beach erosion?
I’m not, nor have I ever been, a Sand Engineer. Do not get me started on Sand Engineers, they’re much worse than climate scientists, even.
Sea level rise?
Not going to go there either, nothing you’ve stated is news to me, plus I know way more than you’ll ever be capable of knowing in said subject matter. I do happen to have worked for the USACE ERDC CHL, and CRREL before then. My thesis was all about stratified flows, something called OTEC, dealing with salt water and temperature gradients even, hundreds of experiments with both even. 🙂
Dude, all engineering and scientific software, as used on all the world’s supercomputers is STILL WRITTEN IN FORTRAN! Big iron is nearly 100% Fortran, still writes the fastest code possible, short of assembly coding (And who does that anymore? Seriously.).
Now on the desktop we have dozens of flavors of *NIX in 64-bits, the main one being OS X, and Windows 7 (I’ve been 64-bit Windows for over five years now).
Do I need to point you to Intel’s (64-bit and multi-core and vectorizable) or PGI’s (CUDA (or still vectorizable without it) and multi-core and 64-bit) modern Fortran compilers? Or the Fortran 2003/2008 standards?
There are literally dozen’s of 64-bit Fortran compilers on the market today, and two free 64-bit Fortran compilers (G95 and gfortran).
So, for instance, FFTW, is written in Fortran, and is the algorithm that MATLAB uses to solve large vector based FFT’s.
C99 (that’s 1999, as in the year of adoption) finally got complex numbers and IEEE double precision floating point (64-bit longs).
1999? 🙁
That’s all folks, this is now page 2, you won’t be hearing from me again in this thread (with the very slight minor exception of clearing up any misunderstandings you might still have on storm surge).
Bye-bye.